The Ugly American: Trump Lies, Protocol Breaches and Possible Treason

Trump barging in front of Elizabeth II

Years ago when I traveled abroad regularly for business, one of things that often made me cringe were American tourists, a certain percentage of which seem to always display rudeness, boorishness, and a basic contempt for their foreign hosts.  The epitome was when I was in the line to enter the Louvre in Paris and a group of decidedly overweight Mid-Westerners were loudly and continually bitching that the the menu at the McDonald's on the Champs Elysee wasn't just like the one in the backwater they came from.  I made an effort to hide my nationality, hoping I might pass as English, Canadian or even French with luck.  Now, we have Donald Trump, the boor-in-chief proving a nonstop embarrassment to Americans as he engages in constantly lies, snubs Queen Elizabeth - the Brits are faulting her for even meeting with Trump - and trashes the Western order in general.  Deliciously, as Trump's was being greeted by huge protests in London, Robert Mueller drop 12 more indictments of Russian nationals linking Putin's intelligence service to the hacks of the DNC and Clinton email servers.  While no Americans were among those indicted - not yet, anyway - the evidence is building that collusion with a foreign enemy regime did occur.  Trump true to form continues to scream the entire Mueller investigation is a "witch hunt" - a witch hunt that is catching more and more witches. A piece in New York Magazine looks at this bombshell.  Here are highlights: 

On July 27, 2016, Donald Trump denied Russia was the likely culprit in the email hacks, but also announced, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think that you’ll be rewarded mightily by our press.”

In what is possibly an astonishing coincidence, but probably not, that very night, according to the new indictments from the Department of Justice, Russian hackers “attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office. At or about the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign.” Trump asked Russia to hack his opponent, and Russia did “[f]or the first time,” as the indictment says.

Today’s latest, and almost certainly not last, indictments in the Russia scandal concern 12 Russian intelligence figures. . . . The danger for Trump is the implication of collusion scattered throughout the indictments.

The indictment charges that the conspirators “received a request for stolen materials from a candidate for the U.S. Congress,” and “sent the candidate stolen documents.” The Wall Street Journal reported a year ago that “Guccifer 2.0,” one of the Russian hackers, communicated with Florida-based Republican operative Aaron Nevins. Nevins is not named in this indictment, but the revelation that a candidate also communicated with Russian hackers indicates yet another point of contact in a conspiracy that went beyond Trump’s campaign.

The most direct path to the Trump campaign indicated in this indictment runs through Roger Stone. The Republican dirty trickster officially left the Trump campaign in 2015, but remained in regular contact with Trump throughout the campaign.

Stone admittedly engaged in direct communication with one of the indicted Russian agents. The indictment cites Stone’s contact with Guccifer 2.0:

That certainly looks like acting as an accessory to a crime. Stone promises he will “never roll on Trump,” unlike John Dean, who fingered President Nixon for crimes during Watergate. The promise and the analogy both suggest that Stone has evidence of culpability between Trump and Russia.

[The prosecution is building its case step by step, and the absence of formal charges against an individual in any one indictment hardly indicates they are in the clear. President

Little wonder Trump wants to meet with Putin totally alone: he wants no witnesses as he asks his handler what to do as the noose slowly but steadily tightens around him.

Pence Confirms He's an Ass; Gets Upstaged By Kim Jong-un’s Sister

Mike Pence - rude and arrogant in Pyeongchang

When I travel abroad almost monthly during my in-house counsel days, I witnessed many examples of "ugly Americans" who gave/give America a bad image abroad.  A classic was when standing in line to enter the Louvre, some overweight midwestern Americans were loudly bitching that the McDonalds on the Champs Elysee wasn't just like to one in their home town.  Of course, other examples of American rudeness and bad manners were all to numerous.  At the opening ceremony for the 2018 Winter Olympics, Mike Pence continued this tradition of making America look bad in foreign eyes when he only stood for the American teem and insulted the host nation.  He likewise snubbed the president of South Korea and failed to appear at a dinner prior to the opening ceremony.  Pence's ignorance embracing, racist, Christian extremist supporters may have loved his bad behavior, but for thinking Americans, Pence is a huge embarrassment - almost on the scale of Der Trumpenführer.  Moreover, Pence allowed himself to be upstaged by Kim Jong-un’s sister who sought to exemplify politeness and grace.  An article in the New York Times looks at Pence's failure.  Here are excerpts:

When the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, decided to send a large delegation to the Winter Olympics in South Korea this month, the world feared he might steal the show.

If that was indeed his intention, he could not have chosen a better emissary than the one he sent: his only sister, Kim Yo-jong, whom news outlets in the South instantly dubbed “North Korea’s Ivanka,” . . . .

Flashing a sphinx-like smile and without ever speaking in public, Ms. Kim managed to outflank Mr. Trump’s envoy to the Olympics, Vice President Mike Pence, in the game of diplomatic image-making.

While Mr. Pence came with an old message — that the United States would continue to ratchet up “maximum sanctions” until the North dismantled its nuclear arsenal — Ms. Kim delivered messages of reconciliation as well as an unexpected invitation from her brother to the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, to visit Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

Mr. Pence drew the greatest reaction for where he did not appear: most pointedly, at a dinner Mr. Moon hosted before the opening ceremony. That meant that he avoided spending much time with the North Korean delegation, including Kim Yong-nam, the country’s ceremonial head of state.

And while the unified Korean Olympic team received a standing ovation as they marched into the stadium Friday night, Mr. Pence remained seated, which critics said was disrespectful of the athletes and his host, Mr. Moon.

Mr. Pence is playing “right into North Korea’s hands by making it look like the U.S. is straying from its ally and actively undermining efforts for inter-Korean relations,”. . . . Ms. Kim, on the other hand, “is a very effective tip of the spear for the North Korean charm offensive,” Mr. Oba said.

“The fact that he and Mrs. Pence didn’t stand when the unified team came in was a new low in a bullying type of American diplomacy.”

As the first immediate member of the North’s ruling family to visit South Korea, Ms. Kim was swarmed by the local news media. Even before she touched down in her brother’s private jet at Incheon airport, west of Seoul, the approach of the plane drew news exhaustive coverage. 

The Desruction of the American Century

If one is a student of history, one realizes that over the centuries, various nations have risen to dominance only to later slide into decline.  Think of ancient Egypt, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, China in the first millennium, Spain at its height, France, the British Empire, and then there's America.  Sometimes decline comes from internal forces - e.g., Christianity's undermining of the Roman Empire or Britain's failure to modernize its industrial base - while other times imperial over reach and prolonged wars have sapped nations' finances, and yet other times challenges from rising nations trigger decline.  A piece in Salon looks at how the champions of American exceptionalism, typically Republicans, have undermined America and hastened the destruction of the so-called American Century.  Much like the most strident Christofasists who are killing Christianity even as they claim to be working to save it, today's pro-endless war, pro-discrimination Republican Party and its hate and fear motivated base are giving America an ugly face around the world and re-enforce the very stereotypes that our enemies use against us. Here are article highlights:

The news that an al-Qaida recruitment video prepared in Somalia refers to anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States and includes footage of Donald Trump shows the profound damage that the Republican front-runner is doing to America’s international image. Trump’s bearing is all swagger, but he and his zealous supporters project a weak and defensive stance to the world. They have redefined the United States as hostile and fearful.

Unwittingly, these right-wing champions of American exceptionalism have brought about the end of the American century. They announce the end of an era in which America offered a positive image of openness, possibility and the potential of the individual.

The “American century” names an intimate connection between the international reach of American culture and the global power of the United States in economic, political and military terms. It is based on the idea that the popularity and attractiveness of American culture has positive political benefits for the United States.

But because of the global reach of U.S. culture and media in the digital age, Trump and his disaffected supporters’ message of rage and intolerance has become the new face of America.

Conspiracy theorists, racists, anti-Semites, haters of Islam, and misogynists, these Americans are fueled by a combination of disorientation and resentment. The world has left them behind. They do not speak its languages and barely recognize their new surroundings. The familiarity of stereotypes and hate-filled slurs is their comfort.

They fashion themselves as a cultural right wing and defenders of American values. They support Trump, but other Republican candidates would like their endorsement.

Bringing down the American century is not something you can do by yourself.  This militia of the marginal used the greatest creation of the American century to bring about its downfall—the Internet.  

The American century was built on a positive aura, not hate. From the romantic comedies of classic Hollywood to Coke’s “I’d like to teach the world to sing,” America exported the promise of love.

In Henry Luce’s influential 1941 essay “The American Century,” the publishing magnate argued that American culture had a crucial role to play in world politics. Luce argued against the isolationists and the nativists when he suggested that we were already an international power: “American jazz, Hollywood movies, American slang, American machines and patented products, are in fact the only things that every community in the world, from Zanzibar to Hamburg, recognizes in common.”

But the ingenuity of American creativity and the positive message could inspire and empower too. And some of our greatest corporations, including Google, Yahoo and eBay, were founded by immigrants to the United States.

Luce’s sense that the international reach of American culture had a role to play in creating and maintaining the conditions for the political supremacy of the U.S. was soon taken as a truism.

As the Cold War wound down, much of the state-funded cultural apparatus was dismantled. The U.S. Information Agency, which had been created in 1953 to prevent cultural programs from seeming like propaganda, was dissembled finally in 1999. The Cold War was over. We thought we had won.

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, some commentators argued that we should bring back our Cold War cultural diplomacy, that in the battle for hearts and minds, we had a great tool.

From Fez to Tehran, young Arabs and Iranians are intimately familiar with American popular culture. As I argue in my new book, “After the American Century: The Ends of U.S. Culture in the Middle East,” a newer generation across the Middle East and North Africa made a distinction between America as a creator of cultural products and the United States as a geopolitical entity. That meant that through the 1990s and 2000s, they could continue to enjoy and consume our attractive culture without contradicting their increasing dismay regarding our policies in their region. But as the Internet has developed as a space where comment boards and hate speech flourishes, that gap is closing.

Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim comments —and the massive support they are receiving—are heard loud and clear in Muslim majority countries. Whether it is Trump’s, Rubio’s or those of the American governors who deny Syrian refugees entry to their states, these voices wipe out State Department efforts to convince the world that the war on terror is not a war on Muslims.

Supplemented by thousands of hateful comments by the militia of the marginal, and paired with massively influential products such as the hateful “Innocence of Muslims” video from 2012, the new American discourse of hate and fear wipes out decades of more hopeful and inspiring American cultural products.

Can we still harness the positive attitude of optimism, hope and ingenuity that represents the best of the previous era and restart a new relationship to the world based on respect, trust, and partnership?

Over a decade ago when I was in British Columbia when George W. Bush was running for re-election, I heard a number of times warm feelings expressed towards Americans even as derogatory remarks were made about Bush and America's ill advised Middle East attempts at conquest.  Now, the picture of Americans that many foreigners see is that of the racists, white supremacists and lunatic "militia" crowds of the GOP base.  The warm feelings I experienced are being slowly and steadily killed the images being broadcast abroad.  Back in May in Paris, we did our best to not come across as being Americans and the result was that we were treated very warmly.